Bowhunting Archives - Page 32 of 60

11 03, 2019

2018 Virginia Deer Harvest

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00March 11th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Management|Comments Off on 2018 Virginia Deer Harvest

In my home state of Virginia last season, hunters harvested 190,636 deer, including 96,239 antlered bucks, 12,342 button bucks, and 82,055 does. Bowhunters killed 26,676 of those deer. For the first time since crossbows became legal for all archery hunters in fall 2005, the number of whitetails taken with crossbows exceeded the number taken with vertical bows. Blackpowder hunters shot 43,749 deer during the popular November muzzleloader season. Firearms hunters (rifles and shotguns) killed 120,074 deer, or 63% of the total. Approximately 161,800 deer (85%) were checked using the Department’s electronic telephone and Go Outdoors Virginia online checking portal. Virginia Deer Project Coordinator Matt Knox expected the fall 2018 harvest total to be down for 2 reasons. First, much of [...]

4 03, 2019

Ohio Bowhunter Builds Incredible Fighting Buck Mount!

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00March 4th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting|Comments Off on Ohio Bowhunter Builds Incredible Fighting Buck Mount!

Last November bowhunter Lee Fackler shot a huge 17-point buck in Putnam County, Ohio, but in reality he scored a 27-pointer. As you can see below, Lee's buck had a recently expired 10-point buck entangled with it. Lee tagged his buck and called in the Ohio DNR, which gave him a salvage tag for the second deer. UPDATE: Lee recently picked up the 2 heads, which his taxidermist had mounted separately. Lee went home and built this awesome display and fitted the bucks back together in fighting form as he had encountered them that day last November. Incredible job sir, looks amazing! Special thanks to Nikisha Fackler for providing these pictures [...]

26 02, 2019

5 Massive Deadhead Bucks

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 26th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Shed Hunting|1 Comment

Some shed hunters that roam the woods from now till early spring will find “deadheads,” or the skulls and antlers of bucks that died months earlier. A deadhead might have perished of any number of causes: hit by a car, lost by a bowhunter the previous season, winterkill, predators or natural causes. Most deadhead finds are small to medium-size, but each year a few people stumble upon massive skulls, like these 5. This first picture popped up on my Twitter feed yesterday and is the first mega-deadhead of the 2019 shed season. It was found in southwest Ohio. The top skull of 2018 also showed up [...]

19 02, 2019

Top 10 Deer Bowhunting States

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 19th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting|2 Comments

The QDMA’s 2019 Whitetail Report points out that bowhunting for whitetails has never been more popular. In 2002 only 15 percent of the total whitetail harvest in America was taken with archery tackle; that percentage rose to 23 percent in 2017. Check out these numbers from 2019 report: The 5 states with the most bowhunters are: 1) Pennsylvania (339,600 bowhunters); 2) Michigan (311,000); 3) Wisconsin (246,211); 4) New York (231,000); 5 Missouri (222,717). The 6 states with the most bowhunters per square mile are: Pennsylvania (7.6 bowhunters PSM; 2) New Jersey (5.9); 3 Michigan (5.5); 4) New York (4.9): 5) Ohio (4.5); 6) Wisconsin (4.5). The top 5 states with the highest percentage of annual deer harvest with archery tackle: [...]

6 02, 2019

Are Crossbow Hunters Killing Too Many Bucks?

admin2020-06-10T09:15:25-04:00February 6th, 2019|Big Deer Stories, Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Hunting News|9 Comments

Back in 2014, I blogged that Wisconsin was the latest major whitetail state to permit the use of the crossbow during the regular archery season. Since then, the crossbow season in the state has run concurrently with the archery season, typically mid-September through December. One of the original complaints from traditionalists and vertical bowhunters at the time was that crossbow hunters would kill too many bucks. There is no denying that it is easier (and takes less practice) to kill a deer with a crossbow than with a compound or recurve. Well, 5 years later, with crossbow technology having increased tenfold, turns out those fears might have been warranted. WKOW in Madison reports that at a recent Wisconsin Natural Resources [...]